Physical therapy
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Hydrotherapy versus conventional land-based exercise for the management of patients with osteoarthritis of the knee: a randomized clinical trial.
This study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of hydrotherapy in subjects with osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee compared with subjects with OA of the knee who performed land-based exercises. ⋯ Both water-based and land-based exercises reduced knee pain and increased knee function in participants with OA of the knee. Hydrotherapy was superior to land-based exercise in relieving pain before and after walking during the last follow-up. Water-based exercises are a suitable and effective alternative for the management of OA of the knee.
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Posterior-anterior (PA) assessment of the lumbar spine correlates with radiographic signs of instability and can guide treatment choices, yet studies of the validity of lumbar PA assessments have not been conducted in vivo. The purposes of this study were to determine the intertester reliability of the PA examination in assessing intersegmental lumbar spine motion and to evaluate the validity of this procedure in vivo with dynamic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). ⋯ Despite good intertester reliability for identifying the least mobile segment, PA assessments of lumbar segmental mobility did not agree with sagittal-plane motion measured by dynamic MRI. This finding calls into question the validity of the PA procedure for assessing intervertebral lumbar spine motion.
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This case report describes a patient referred for physical therapy treatment of neck pain who had an underlying hangman's fracture that precluded physical therapy intervention. ⋯ In patients with neck pain caused by trauma, physical therapists should be alert for the presence of cervical spine fractures. Even if the initial radiographs are negative for a fracture, additional diagnostic imaging may be necessary for a small number of patients, because they may have undetected injuries that would necessitate medical referral and preclude physical therapy intervention.